Expert: MARK A. HOWELL - 11/7/2009

Question
when I get older I want to be a marine but I was diagnosed with asthma at 12 but I know it was a misdiagnosis. so how can I prove it was a misdiagnosis? should I just lie at meps? I know for sure I dot have asthma and I never used my inhaler. right now I turn 15 in 2 months and I am going to ask my mom to take me to the doctor to get tested. so if I test negative for asthma should I just not tell meps because I can run with out a problem? I currently do not have asthma it just went away after a couple of days I think I was just sick. How many waivers does the marines give out for asthma? Will I require a waiver? I did not have asthma past my 13th birthday. What are my chances of getting in?

I know I didnt have asthma, asthma dose not just come and go in a few days.

Please help me all I ever wanted to do is become a marine.

Answer
Pierre,

The following is a quote right out of military regulations:
"The causes for rejection for appointment, enlistment, and induction are an authenticated history of:  Asthma, including reactive airway disease, exercise induced bronchospasm or asthmatic bronchitis, reliably diagnosed at any age.  Reliable diagnostic criteria should consist of any of the following elements:
(1) Substantiated history of cough, wheeze, and/or dyspnea that persists or recurs over a prolonged period of time, generally more than 6 months.
(2) If the diagnosis of asthma is in doubt, a test for reversible airflow obstruction (greater than a 15 percent increase in forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEVI) following administration of an inhaled bronchodilator) or airway hyperactivity (exaggerated decrease in airflow induced by standard bronchoprovocation challenge such as methacholine inhalation or a demonstration of exercise-induced bronchospasm) must be performed."

Asthma is easily misdiagnosed and often confused with a mild allergy.   Also, young people often "outgrow" asthma.  Below is a quote from a medical journal:

"Asthma is usually diagnosed in childhood.  In many patients, however, the symptoms will disappear or be significantly reduced after puberty.  Around age 20, symptoms may begin to reappear.  Researchers have tracked this tendency for reappearing asthma and found that people with childhood asthma tend to experience reappearing symptoms through their 30s and 40s at various levels of severity.  Regardless of whether your asthma is active, continue to avoid your known triggers and keep your rescue medication handy in case you need them.  Approximately 50% of children with asthma appear to outgrow asthma when they reach adolescence.  Once someone develops sensitive airways, they remain that way for life, although asthma symptoms can vary through the years.  As a child's airways mature, they are able to handle airway inflammation and irritants better, so their asthma symptoms may notably decrease. About half of those children find their asthma symptoms reappear in varying degrees when they reach their late thirties or early forties.  There is no way to predict which persons may experience greatly reduced symptoms as they get older."

Trying to prove to the military that you no longer have asthma or that you were  misdiagnosed is extremely difficult.  That's why most people just avoid it.  As you can see from the medical journal quote, asthma may reappear later in life, so the military may say you still have it, you're just in a dormant stage right now.  Hopefully you've outgrown it and will never have any problems again.

What most people in your situation do is simply deny ever being diagnosed with asthma and see if MEPS doctors catch it.  By no means am I encouraging you to lie, but if you're convinced you don't have it then why complicate things by saying you do?

Sorry for such a long answer but I thought you needed to know all the facts.
Thanks for wanting to serve in the military.
Best of Luck,
Colonel H

PS. Sorry for the delay in answering but I just returned from a no-notice nission.